Baby Steps
by capitol grasshopper
Summary: We all tried to run before we could walk


**A/N: My latest drabble series. 5 drabbles, 200 words each, about TEAM building with a side of hayffie. Mockingjay, follows movie canon of Effie in 13. Haven't seen the movie yet though... just 6 more sleeps!  
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><p><strong>Stumbling<strong>

"When you said you had a plan to get them out of the arena I never imagined... _this_!" she whines pointing at the tray of untouched food she's eyeing with a disgusted expression.

He doesn't know why everything is his fault as of recently but she seems to think he set it all up expressly to torture her. He's past his boiling point, fork mid-air, as Plutarch states his own disappointment over 13's hospitality but promptly adds that they all need to make sacrifices for the _greater good_.

She merely sighs and chases the odd smelling meatballs around her plate, dejected.

"Well, what did you imagine I'd do, then? Magic?" Haymitch prompts with a huff.

Effie smoothes invisible creases on her blouse and stubbornly doesn't meet his eyes. "Something other than... start a war and starve us all!"

He has to cackle at the irony. Plutarch outright laughs. She sinks her fork in the food, succumbing to the hunger at last. He admits to himself the meat is gristly at best.

As they leave he wraps his ration of bread in a towel and slips it in her pocket for later, when he knows she'll complain about being hungry again.

**Falling**

Watching Katniss' retreating back, the polite reassuring smile slips from her face.

Her escort persona is much too heavy to carry all of the time in 13, she can put on a brave face for just as long.

"When you brought me here I thought you broke the loop," she says low enough that only Haymitch can hear "yet here I am, doing the same things over and over again, watching as they leave to fight one another..."

Out of the corner of his eye Haymitch sees her white knuckles from her grip on the clipboard. She's almost shaking, upset to the point her eyes are glossy, but he can't tell if it's because of their disagreement over letting the girl go to District 8 or the feeling of not being in control of her life anymore.

"It's like I'm stuck in a limbo." she comments in a small voice before turning on her heels to head back to Command.

He never wanted to mentor either, starting a revolution seemed like a good idea at the time... and yet there he stands, following Katniss as she boards an hovercraft to yet another arena-like battlefield.

"You and I both." he adds.

**Crawling**

Katniss trains. Peeta bakes. He cannot drink anymore. He spends half of his days planning and the other half watching the boy knead and decorate delicious desserts from behind a mirror. Effie fusses over them all like she used to. She sits quietly next to him and he catches her fond stare.

On the other side of the glass, humming to himself, Peeta is drowning _A_ shaped cookies in rhum and frosting them with a thick layer of chocolate.

"Are you getting emotional over sweets now?" he mocks her.

With a shake of her head she shifts closer, eyes still riveted to the boy: "He's baking Capitol mother's day cookies; he read the recipe book I gave him during Victory Tour." she whispers astonished "He must terribly miss his family."

Haymitch doubts it, Peeta's mother didn't look like the nurturing kind and his brothers definitely took after her. He studies the boy as he starts decorating _E_ shaped cookies with marmalade and lemon mousse.

Peeta seems in a good mood, Delly is chatting gleefully, they share a joke as he places golden sugar beads on a tray of _T_ shaped cookies. Haymitch wonders about the forgotten _M_s in the oven.

**Standing**

"Any improvement?" she enquires softly in the half dark room. Haymitch shakes his head without looking away from Katniss' sleeping form. "You could use some rest, I'll stay for awhile."

He blinks and realizes he hasn't slept a wink in days. He still doesn't move so she threads her fingers in his hair, lifting strands from his eyes, demanding his attention. The bright fake smile that was her trademark seems like a memory from a past life.

He stands up at last, vacating the uncomfortable chair to flop on the sofa in the left corner of the same room. Too tired to sleep, he listens to the humming of Katniss' devices, trying to synchronize his own breathing. He doesn't move when he hears the girl waking up from her drug induced coma a few minutes later and lays still when she calls her mother.

"No, dear, it's just me," answers Effie instead, escort persona firmly in place "Do you want me to fetch her for you?"

But Katniss declines and something in the way her voice caught shifts the air.

When he opens his eyes again Effie is sitting on the girl's hospital bed, drying her eyes, whispering soothing lies.

**Running**

There's a picture on the Mellark's mantlepiece now, it catches Haymitch's eye every time he visits.

Katniss' first born runs behind a fledgling goose in his backyard as he watches, sipping tainted coffee and dwelling on things beyond his control. Life did not end after the war, Katniss keeps hunting, Peeta still bakes, he drinks and waits and wonders if this is how it was supposed to be in the end. He doesn't think Effie meant it like that in the beginning, but he's sure Peeta felt it from the start. Katniss took her sweet time to accept it and he can't bring himself to call it what it is even now.

Strangers with no blood connection are not a family. A team, maybe.

But watching Peeta's little girl show them her latest drawing of _aunt_ Effie and _uncle_ Haymitch, later at the dinner table, he can't deny bloodlines would merely be an optional to their close clan.

There's a picture on the Mellark's mantlepiece he stares at thinking about the odds of it being real. It's a still from the kids' wedding day years ago: the four of them smiling bright, their heads up and matching gold on display.


End file.
